Drawbacks of medical system

Drawbacks of medical system

Another drawback of modern medical system is that it tends to prescribe separate drug for each aiIment or symptom; e.g., sedatives or analgesics for pain, temperature reducing (anti-pyretic) drugs for fever, laxatives for constipation and so on. This sort of management does not consider the patient or his ailment as one unit. In this sort of management which comprises separate treatment for each symptom of a disease, large doses of drugs have to be given. Besides, when the symptoms of the disease recur, more potent drugs have to be administered. It should be remembered that the more potent a drug is, the greater is the risk of its side-effects.

Modern medical treatment relies on the assumption that the human body is composed of separate, independent pieces and not of an indivisible unit. This has led to the steady increase in the number of specialists in different diseases. An ophthalmologist would treat only the eyes and an orthopedist would treat only the bones. Similarly a cardiologist would deal with the diseases pertaining to the heart only.

On the other hand, traditional therapists of the eastern countries regard the human body as one indivisible unit or entity (as a whole). In their opinion no individual part of the human body can remain healthy or unhealthy independent of the other parts. Their approach is to treat the patient and not the disease. They believe that diseases can be prevented provided the resistance power of the body is strengthened with the help of proper food, proper lifestyle and proper physical exercise. On the other hand, if the patient’s body has lost its resistance power, no medicine or surgery will cure him.

Drugs can give a patient some relief from pain or can give sense of some comfort till the body’s power of resistance completely alleviates the disease. They are of no more use than that. It is a matter worth pondering over whether we should carry on our shoulder, the risk involved in the side-effects of these drugs, which, in turn give only insignificant, temporary benefits.